The relationship between total dose, number of fractions and fraction size in the response of malignant melanoma in patients

Abstract

The response of melanomas was assessed retrospectively from the clinical notes on 52 patients from 3 centers in UK. The response was very variable. A tentative isoeffect curve was fitted to the UK data which gave a good fit to data from a prospective study from Yale. Clinical data from the Melbourn Clinic on response and fraction size showed a similar response to that from the UK and the combined data showed that the response to fraction sizes of 400-800 rad was significantly better (P about 0.01) than to fraction sizes of 200-299 rad.